


As much what it is as what it's not

by deadendtracks (amonitrate)



Series: Get It Wrong, Get It Right [2]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Class Issues, F/M, Jealousy, Marriage Proposal, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-08 09:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21473707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/pseuds/deadendtracks
Summary: “Is that what you think, that I’d only be marrying you for the politics?”A rocky start and some tender moments between Lizzie and Tommy.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark
Series: Get It Wrong, Get It Right [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1547779
Comments: 28
Kudos: 108
Collections: Peaky Blinders Exchange Round Two: Season 5 Edition





	As much what it is as what it's not

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anothershelby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anothershelby/gifts).

> I do not consent to have my work hosted on or accessed by any third party app or site. If you are seeing this fanfiction anywhere but archiveofourown it has been reposted or accessed without my permission. Please be aware that I am strongly against this type of app and ask that you access my fic via AO3 in the future.

She hadn’t asked Tommy to do it but before they were married, before she moved in to Arrow House, the portrait of Grace disappeared from the main hall. It didn’t at all seem like something he’d think to do, it didn’t even seem like something he’d have agreed to do if she’d asked, and she hadn’t dared ask. But when she arrived with the first of her bags, ahead of the truck with the modest remainder of what she owned and cared enough to keep, the first thing she did was glance up to where the portrait had always hung, watchful lady in white, a ghost that had followed her any time she climbed the stairs. Everything she wasn’t: elegant and mannered and blonde and from a proper family and above all, adored.

But where the portrait usually loomed there was a horse instead. Probably one of Tommy’s, but Lizzie didn’t know horses well enough to tell one from another except by color. This one was big and black and stood in a green field that might have been the property around the house or might have just been any field, a field in a made up place. He’d certainly kept the local painters busy, Tommy. She’d never thought to ask him about it, whether he favored one artist over another or if he picked them at random. She couldn’t imagine him taking the time to care. Despite the fact she’d been his secretary for five years now and had been employed by him in other ways for years before that, there was so much she still didn’t know.

Like where the fuck he even was.

The housekeeper, Frances, she of the constant downturned mouth, had met them in the big hall and was directing the maids to disappear the bags. Frances didn’t approve of her. It wasn’t anything she’d ever said, she was much too proper for that. But Lizzie had a finely-tuned sense of when she was being disapproved of, it having been a constant state for most of her life, well before she’d started fucking men for money. She was used to it, and used to ignoring it. She’d never had to live with it, though, share her house with it.

“Mrs. Shelby,” Frances greeted. “Mr. Shelby called and asked me to tell you he was caught up in a meeting and will be home late.” With that, without waiting for a reaction, she turned and disappeared back into the house.

“Welcome home,” Lizzie said to Ruby, who squirmed in her arms and grabbed a handful of her collar, going for one of her buttons.

Babies were so blissfully unaware of the goings-on around them, weren’t they. 

He’d got round to proposing marriage when she was heavily, obviously pregnant, six months gone. She’d been living in the fine house he’d bought for her as promised, and he hadn’t been by since she’d first moved in, before the victory party he’d held in Warwickshire. Gone on holiday, or so everyone said, but nobody seemed to know what that even fucking meant, and nobody’d seen him until he just showed back up at the office again months later and announced he was running for fucking Parliament. He must not have thought she’d kept in touch with the girls in the office because he appeared at her door unannounced a few days later, on a fucking Tuesday, carrying a bouquet of flowers.

“And what’re these for?” she’d asked, blocking the doorway with her body, aware in ways she usually wasn’t that she had several inches on him and with her new girth, came closer to equaling him in weight than she ever had before.

The bastard had just blinked at her with that quirk of the mouth he probably thought was charming. “I’m sure your maid would appreciate them, you can give them to her.”

“Maybe she would, if I had one, which I don’t, because I fucking fired her three months ago. Which you’d have known if you’d bothered to visit.”

“Fair enough,” Tommy said mildly, giving no excuse at all for his absence, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever hated him more than in that moment. 

“What is it you want, Tommy?”

“A bin to toss these flowers in, apparently,” he’d said, and she’d sighed and let him inside.

“Why’d you fire your maid?” he asked idly as she took the bouquet from him and dumped it in the trash bin in the kitchen as he watched, cap still on, hands in his coat pockets.

“Sitting around here, nothing to do but have some girl in a frilly cap bring me cups of tea I could have fixed for myself.” Lizzie crossed her arms over her chest, aware of his gaze, the way he was noticing, finally, the swell of her belly. “It was ridiculous.”

“It’s a girl out a weekly wage, is what it is,” Tommy said.

She laughed. “So now your concern is the plight of the working woman, is it, Tom?”

That got her a tilt of his chin. He swept his cap off, smoothing down his hair with one hand. Rolled the thing and shoved it in one pocket. “I’d hoped we could talk.”

“We’re talking now, aren’t we.” 

“Suppose we are.” 

“What do you want, Tommy. Why’re you here?”

His hands were clasped behind his back, shoulders straight, the posture he got when he was about to command his troops. “I’ve a proposition for you.”

Hurt burned through her, and she could feel tears trying to force their way out, but she wouldn’t fucking do that, not in front of him. 

“I fucking knew it.” The line between his eyes was the only sign he was confused, but even his confusion was too much. “Get out.”

His face smoothed like he’d finally fucking put things together. “Alright,” he said. “When you decide you want to hear what I’ve come to say, let me know.”

And with that, he’d turned and left.

The bedroom she’d share with Tommy, _ her _ bedroom now, wasn’t the one he’d slept in when he’d been married to Grace. For awhile after Grace died that room had remained empty and untouched, some kind of bloody shrine she supposed, and Tommy’d slept in another room down the hall. She hadn’t spent much time there, even after they’d started fucking again. At some point during the time his family had been locked up Tommy’d had the shrine stripped and redecorated, the furniture sold. Then after the business with the vendetta, after he’d returned home, after his holiday, he’d left this substitute for a third room. Lucky for him the house had no lack of bedrooms. 

It was to this third room that her things had been delivered and left neatly inside the door, and it was to this third room she retreated, shutting the door behind her. Ruby burbled at her as she set her down in the middle of the big bed. Started kicking her little arms and legs, grabbing at her own toes. 

“Well,” she said to Ruby. “Suppose we can’t just stay up here until your dad gets home, can we?” 

Ruby didn’t care, was the thing, Ruby would be perfectly happy if they never left the bedroom at all. Ruby had everything she’d ever need, right here.

It took her a week to finally give in. She met him in his office, made a proper appointment with his new secretary and everything, so there’d be no mistaking what this was. No fucking flowers this time, just Tommy behind his big desk waiting with nothing on his face while she took a seat. 

“So,” she said.

“So,” he echoed, cool behind the round lenses of his glasses. 

“What’s your proposition, then?” She knew exactly what it was going to be, but she wanted to hear how he’d say it, maybe.

“Lizzie--” She’d made him uncomfortable. It was a strange thing to realize, that. A first, certainly, for her. 

“Out with it,” Lizzie said. “I know you’re a busy man.”

“Fuck.” Tommy stood and crossed the room to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a whiskey. “Why’d you come now, Lizzie? Why fucking here?”

“Why not here? Not like the girls out there don’t know what’s going on. They know why I left.”

“I’m not trying to hide anything.” He sounded tired. Had his back to her still, but she could see him down his drink in one go and pour himself another before he turned round and returned to the desk, taking the seat next to her this time.

“Then there’s no need for your proposition, is there. Things can just go on as they have.”

“I thought you’d want--”

“To be a politician’s wife?”

Tommy paused at that, then pulled out his cigarette case and took a moment to light up. “You’ve been talking to Pol, eh?”

Of course Polly knew, Christ, of course. Lizzie turned away to study the leather bound books shelved behind the desk, smarting from that, from the fact Polly had stopped by once a fucking week to have tea with her and never mentioned a word of this.

“When’s the election?”

Tommy took a drag on his cigarette. He did that when he wanted to gather his thoughts before he spoke, probably believed nobody had caught on to his little tricks. “Spring,” he said.

“After your daughter is due, then.” He raised a brow at that, but didn’t comment. Polly apparently kept a lot of things to herself. “You think I’ll be trouble for you?”

The smoke gathered between them like fog. “No,” he said slowly. “I don’t.”

“Then why bother with your little proposition?”

“Is that what you think, that I’d only be marrying you for the politics?”

“What am I supposed to think, Tommy?” She couldn’t hold back the bitterness. “You didn’t exactly throw a party when I told you about the baby. Said I’d get a house. Offered to drive me home.”

He stubbed the cigarette out in the little crystal ashtray on his desk. His mouth was pressed in a thin line, like he knew he’d been a horse's arse but would never admit it. That was something, she supposed.

“So why are you here, today?” he asked again.

Lizzie let one of her hands drift to her belly. “Because your daughter kicked me this morning for the first time, and I want her to have a proper home. She doesn’t deserve to be your inconvenient bastard, shuffled off out of sight.” She’d thought him blank before. Now he was wiped of all expression. “When do you propose to do this, then?” 

Tommy sat back in his chair. “Whenever you’d like. However you’d like.”

“I don’t want it in a church,” she said. “Not with me like this. As far as when, whatever best fits your busy fucking schedule would be fine.”

“Alright.” He paused then, almost as if uncertain. “Can I…”

She’d no bloody idea what he meant. “Can you what?”

“You said she’d kicked.”

“Yeah?”

“Nevermind.” He swallowed more of his whiskey, was gathering his things back into his pockets before she made the connection.

“It’s only been the once,” she said, softening. “But if you want to give it a try, go ahead.”

Fucking Tommy Shelby. This right here, this was what got her, every bloody time. He leaned forward and ran a hand over her belly, a light touch. Left it there for a moment, a patient weight, and as if in answer there was that strange internal sensation. Lizzie took hold of his hand and moved it over a bit and he must have felt it, because his eyes had gone warm and a little far off at the same time. 

“So what’d Pol tell you to name her, then?” 

“Does Polly always name them?”

Tommy’s hand slipped away. “Not always. And Ada ignored her with Karl anyhow.”

“What was Karl supposed to be named?”

The corner of Tommy’s mouth turned up. “You’d have to ask Ada that.”

“Ruby,” Lizzie said, and it felt like a gift she was giving him, and she gave it willingly enough she supposed. “Ruby Shelby. Says she’ll be a movie star.”

That got her an actual smile. “Like hell.”

“We’ll see.” Lizzie smoothed her hand over her belly, straightening her skirt. “If I hadn’t agreed, would you have given her your name, made her a Shelby?”

Tommy’s smile faded. “I’d have done whatever you wanted for her, Lizzie.”

She took that in, not sure she should believe him. They sat in companionable silence for the first time since she’d told him she was knocked up and after a moment he sighed. She glanced at the clock. 

“Am I keeping you?”

He’d lit another cigarette. “No. But there’s something I should tell you. Something you should know, now.”

Fucking hell. “What is it then?”

“I’ve a piece of business to take care of, before the election.” He shifted in his chair, exhaling smoke. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, should you find out about this business, since you seem to already fucking know everything anyhow.”

“Does it involve bullets or razors?”

That got her an incredulous look, as if the idea scandalized him. “No.”

“What is it, then.”

He cleared his throat. “I’m going to fuck Jessie Eden.”

“You’re going to what?”

“I’ve made a deal to get on the ballot. I need information on her Communists to give the Crown.”

“And you’re going to fuck it out of her, this information?” The ember at the end of his cigarette glowed, and then after a moment he nodded. “You’re going to seduce her you mean. Make her think you’re on her side.”

Tommy shrugged, the cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Jesus Christ, Tommy.”

“If we’re to be married,” he said, “I thought you should know. So you didn’t--”

“Think you were cheating on me and make a fuss?” Lizzie wanted to laugh but it didn’t come.

He just nodded. 

“Right.” She didn’t know what else to say about it. Wasn’t as if she’d be able to stop him, was it.

“I don’t…” He tapped the ash off of his cigarette and shifted in his chair. “There’s nothing between us.”

He meant the Communist, she could see that. But the thing was, he could have been speaking about her. The only thing between them was the baby inside her.

It wasn’t nothing, that. It wasn’t nothing.

After she’d changed Ruby and put away her things in the big closet Lizzie’d run out of excuses to hide in the bedroom, so she ventured downstairs, baby on her hip. This was her house now, she told herself. It belonged to her, not to any housekeeper, no matter how long she’d been here first. Frances met her polite as ever in the big hall.

“Would you care for some dinner, Mrs. Shelby?”

“I’ll wait for Mr. Shelby, thank you, Frances.”

The housekeeper just stood there for a moment before speaking up, unbearably gently. “Mr. Shelby said he’d be late.”

Oh. Not home later than usual, but _ late _. “Alright,” Lizzie said. “Thank you, yes I suppose I’ll have dinner then. Is Charlie around?”

“Charles has already eaten, and is upstairs. Would you like one of the girls to take the baby to the nursery?”

Nursery, of course there was a nursery, and any number of strangers to look after Ruby for her. She’d forgotten. “No, thank you.”

Frances turned and led the way to the big dining hall, as if maybe Lizzie had never been there. 

She kept Ruby on her lap as she sat at the ridiculous table by herself, the giant picture of Tommy and his horse watching as she ate what they brought her, got the meal over with fast as she could and retreated back upstairs to the bedroom.

Lizzie hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but later, much later, she was woken by the sound of a deep baby chuckle and found Tommy perched at the end of the bed with Ruby on his lap, grinning up at him as he made faces. They were oblivious to her, Tommy and Ruby, and so she took the opportunity to watch them together. It was a side of him she hadn’t much seen, though she’d caught glimpses here and there, with Charlie over the years. 

When she checked the clock, it read two-thirty. Two-thirty in the morning.

“Ah, we woke your mum, Ruby my girl,” he said, the smile lingering as he glanced up at her.

“Where’ve you been?” It popped out, before she could stop it. 

The smile cracked a bit and fell away. “Meeting went late,” was all he’d say. Sometimes he’d answer direct questions, but most often he didn’t explain himself, Tommy. Never had, not unless you pushed him, harder than she had the energy for at two-thirty in the fucking morning.

“I’ll just take her to the nursery,” he said, standing, the baby a natural fixture in his arms. Supporting the head even, like most men forgot to do. It was why she’d agreed to this, she thought. It was why they were here.

“She’s never slept away from me,” Lizzie said. What she really meant was she’d never slept away from Ruby, but she couldn’t say that.

The smile came back, a faint echo of itself. “We’ll see how she does. We can bring the crib in here if she makes a fuss, eh?”

She didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t used to sharing Ruby, not like this. She’d been the one to put off the move, after they were married officially, it’d been her choice. Tommy hadn’t asked her why or insisted on anything, just told her whenever she was ready he’d make the arrangements. That she could redecorate the whole place if she wanted. But she’d been intimidated. She’d only been in the house he’d bought for her a few months, but it was hers, it was the first place that had been hers in her entire life, it was bigger than any flat she’d ever lived in yet still cozy and she’d been almost seven months by then and everything was uncomfortable. 

It wasn’t as if he spent much time in Warwickshire as far as she could tell, anyhow. The campaigning had eaten most of his attention up, and God knew what he was doing with the Communist. After that first conversation he hadn’t mentioned it again and she hadn’t asked, but she’d seen them together, once, at the Garrison. Young, pretty thing with shrewd eyes and a fraying hem on her coat. Not shrewd enough. Doubt had tried to burrow itself into her, then, but she’d plucked it out and crushed it under her shoe. He wouldn’t have told her if it had meant anything more than what he’d said. She couldn’t be sure of much, but she was sure of that.

Lizzie followed him into the nursery and watched as he settled the baby into her crib. He made it look easy. Her own mother was years dead and she hadn’t had much experience with babies, not really, not beyond her nieces and nephews, and that, she’d learnt quickly, was no preparation at all. Polly’d practically moved in the first few weeks, had showed her what to do, but she wasn’t a natural at it.

“How’d you do that?” she whispered, as he pulled the blanket up over their daughter’s belly.

“Hmm,” he said. “Practice.” Then he took her hand in his and led her out of the room. Didn’t speak again until they were in the hall. “Failed a lot, with Finn. Perfected the technique with Charlie.”

Finn was practically a man. It reminded her, again, how much she didn’t know of him.

“How was it today?” he asked as he shut the bedroom door behind them again. She didn’t have an answer for that, and he just gave her a nod. “Look, Lizzie. The staff, Frances, they have ideas about how a house like this is to be run.”

A flush of shame crawled up her neck. She’d only been here half a day and he was calling her on the carpet for fucking something up, when he hadn’t even been here to soften the landing. Something of it must have shown on her face, because he led her over to the bed and sat her down. 

“When I first moved in here, with… with Grace, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.”

At mention of Grace, the sainted Grace, something inside of her froze up. Jesus Christ, was this how it was going to be? Her portrait gone, but her example still haunting the place?

“Tommy--” She tried to stand up, to get some distance, but he just kept hold of her hand and then sat next to her on the bed.

“No, Lizzie, listen. This is your house, yours and Ruby’s, just as much as it’s mine and Charlie’s. It’s not their house, the staff. That’s what Grace had to show me. You don’t have to do things in whatever proper way they think necessary. They’ll wear you down with polite suggestions just to force things into a certain track, into what they’re used to from the toffs they’ve worked for before, but you have to remember who pays their fucking wages, eh?”

“I’m not going to… I can’t just order people around, Tommy.”

There were lines framing his mouth, shadows under his eyes, a tuft of his hair standing on end from taking off his cap, and he was still the most beautiful man she’d ever fucked. 

“Not telling you to order them around.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “But you don’t have to eat by yourself in that fucking hall. You can tell them to bring it to you wherever you’d like, and they will. It’s your house.” 

Her throat was tight and she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t think to realize, then, that Frances must have reported on her to him, for him to know about how her dinner had gone. “What does Charlie think of all this?”

He let her hand go and scrubbed at his face. “He’ll be fine. Bought him a new pony.”

“Jesus Christ, Tommy,” she said, and then laughed.

“I’ve a good touch with babies,” he said ruefully. “It’s once they start talking back I run into trouble.”

She reached out and ran a hand down the line of his jaw.

“Welcome home,” he said, his lips on hers.

So of course, of fucking course, that was when the thin cry came, pissed off and scared even through the walls, Ruby waking in a strange place and finding herself alone.

“Alright,” he said, pulling away. “Homecoming’s just been delayed a bit.”

And he left to see to their child.

**Author's Note:**

> Title adapted from "The Circle Married the Line" by Feist, from Metals.


End file.
